Adam McKay to direct Dick Cheney film

Adam McKay is to direct a movie about Dick Cheney for Paramount Pictures alongside Brad Pitt and Will Ferrell

Adam McKay is to direct a movie about Dick Cheney.

The 'Step Brothers' filmmaker has completed on a screenplay for the as-yet untitled motion picture about the former vice-president of the US for Paramount Pictures, and is hoping to start shooting the film by the spring ahead of a potential 2017 release date.

He told Deadline: "I've always found Cheney fascinating.

"Questions of what drove him, what his beliefs were; but once we started digging I was astounded at how much he had shaped modern America's place in the world and how shocking the methods were by which he gained his power."

McKay will team up with Plan B producers Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, as well as Will Ferrell and Kevin Messick, following the success of 'The Big Short', which the director helmed.

Cheney served as vice-president for eight years from 2001 to 2009 under George W. Bush.

Following the September 11th attacks, he played a leading role co-ordinating the global war on terrorism, and was often criticised for advocating so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding.

Cheney previously worked for former presidents Richard Nixon, and Bush's father George H. W. Bush.

What's more, Cheney - who has an openly gay daughter - was a supporter of homosexual marriage, despite the Bush administration not advocating it.

It won't be the first time he has been portrayed on the big screen as he was played by Richard Dreyfuss in Oliver Stone's 2008 movie 'W', in which Josh Brolin starred as Bush.